Question on ports

[Seruai]

Yoh!
I'm..still having connection issues. I thought perhaps opening all Warframe's UDP ports and adding the TCP ports on top might help.
Any confirmation if this would or wouldn't work?
Also, why does Warframe have TCP ports available when the game uses UDP anyway..
I'll post a screencap of my ports if needed.

[Yzjdriel]

TEXTWALL TO FOLLOW.

Okay, here goes.

I'm assuming you know at the very least a fair amount about how the internet works, since you asked a question about UDP/TCP, but for the sake of anyone else reading this who has the same question, I'm going to ignore that assumption.

On 10/5/2016 at 10:20 PM, Seruai said:

Yoh!
I'm..still having connection issues.

You're likely having connection issues because your client can't establish a connection to the server.  If you're on wifi, check your NAT settings.  If they're on Closed/Strict, you'll need to forward your information to a different set (range) of ports to ensure it moves faster (google can help if you're not sure how to do that), which may fix your problem.

On 10/5/2016 at 10:20 PM, Seruai said:

I thought perhaps opening all Warframe's UDP ports and adding the TCP ports on top might help.
Any confirmation if this would or wouldn't work?
Also, why does Warframe have TCP ports available when the game uses UDP anyway..

That's not really going to have a real effect on anything concerning your issue.  Let's explain why.

Warframe uses UDP because it's a game.  Being able to answer many small queries from an extremely large number of users would gank a server if it used TCP, because it would take a ridiculous amount of time to send information.  UDP allows the server to send a client information one time and then forget that client exists until it wants something else.

Your router (which is what actually talks to the internet, not your computer) needs a connection to the Warframe server before anything can happen, so it first needs to make a handshake (which UDP doesn't do and TCP requires before any other information can be sent) with the server.

Warframe also has TCP ports available because they're also used.  The official Warframe server handles the following operations:

• initial establishment of secure connection to game
• login and account services
• purchasing (market, plat spending in other areas)
• chat (Region, Recruiting, Trade sections, and more often than not the Clan and Alliance tabs as well)
• host selection

At the most basic level, any time you see that spinning square, your computer is talking to the server.  Any time you're not, you aren't.  Obviously that's not entirely accurate (as the chat updates without displaying the square, for one), but for simplicity's sake I'm going to say that it's close enough.

Once you're in an actual game session, the host becomes the only person talking to the server, and even then they only talk to the server at the beginning and end of a mission, or for the few seconds it takes to add a squad member if someone joins you while you're in progress (this is why you sometimes get the two/three-second lag spike when someone joins your squad).  This is a peer-to-peer (P2P) connection.

On 10/5/2016 at 10:20 PM, Seruai said:

I'll post a screencap of my ports if needed.

There's no need for that: the ports used to pass information are chosen arbitrarily and have absolutely no bearing on connection speed.

 

For more information on NAT and how Warframe's connection works, refer to here and here.

 

My best guess would be to say the problem is either your internet, someone else on your network using all the bandwidth, your client being unable to connect properly to the server because it's borked, or your packets getting lost in translation.  If you know what you're doing, try using command line to find out what's going wrong.  If you don't, google can help, and I've listed the possible returns below and what they mean.  To reach a terminal, open your Start menu and type "cmd" into the search line (alternatively, shift+right-click in the folder where your launcher is and select "Open command window here").  Type in the following:

tracert -d -h 100 warframe.com

This command will rapid-fire a series of three "ghost" packets along the path it would take to reach the server.  If the command ends before line 100 with the response "Trace complete.", then your packets are reaching the server, and being unable to connect isn't your problem.

If the command ends at line 100 with the response "Trace complete.", then you need to increase the number of allowable hops (replace the 100 in the code with a larger number)

If at any point you get a row of asterisks ( *     *     * ), that means that the router your computer just tried to use to get to the destination didn't work.  Don't panic if this happens.  Your computer will immediately try a different router, and continue trying other routers until it finds one that works or runs out of tries. 

If upwards of 40 lines go by with nothing but asterisks, then your packets aren't making it past that router, and thus aren't reaching the server.  Your best option then would be to troubleshoot your hardware (use the googles if you don't know what the most common causes of internet connectivity issues are), power-cycle your router (turn it off and on again), or attempt to redownload the client (deleting all copies of your client from your machine before doing this usually helps).  Steam can help you if you're not sure how to reverify your cache after a deletion.

 

 

Hope that made sense, and good luck getting it sorted.  If problems persist, it wouldn't hurt to contact Support.  They know how their own server works far better than I (since I can only guess), and they likely know a few tricks to fix things that I forgot.

Have fun and be safe, Tenno.

Edited October 7, 2016 by Yzjdriel

[Seruai]

2 hours ago, Yzjdriel said:

TEXTWALL TO FOLLOW.

Okay, here goes.

I'm assuming you know at the very least a fair amount about how the internet works, since you asked a question about UDP/TCP, but for the sake of anyone else reading this who has the same question, I'm going to ignore that assumption.

You're likely having connection issues because your client can't establish a connection to the server.  If you're on wifi, check your NAT settings.  If they're on Closed/Strict, you'll need to forward your information to a different set (range) of ports to ensure it moves faster (google can help if you're not sure how to do that), which may fix your problem.

That's not really going to have a real effect on anything concerning your issue.  Let's explain why.

Warframe uses UDP because it's a game.  Being able to answer many small queries from an extremely large number of users would gank a server if it used TCP, because it would take a ridiculous amount of time to send information.  UDP allows the server to send a client information one time and then forget that client exists until it wants something else.

Your router (which is what actually talks to the internet, not your computer) needs a connection to the Warframe server before anything can happen, so it first needs to make a handshake (which UDP doesn't do and TCP requires before any other information can be sent) with the server.

Warframe also has TCP ports available because they're also used.  The official Warframe server handles the following operations:

• initial establishment of secure connection to game
• login and account services
• purchasing (market, plat spending in other areas)
• chat (Region, Recruiting, Trade sections, and more often than not the Clan and Alliance tabs as well)
• host selection

At the most basic level, any time you see that spinning square, your computer is talking to the server.  Any time you're not, you aren't.  Obviously that's not entirely accurate (as the chat updates without displaying the square, for one), but for simplicity's sake I'm going to say that it's close enough.

Once you're in an actual game session, the host becomes the only person talking to the server, and even then they only talk to the server at the beginning and end of a mission, or for the few seconds it takes to add a squad member if someone joins you while you're in progress (this is why you sometimes get the two/three-second lag spike when someone joins your squad).  This is a peer-to-peer (P2P) connection.

There's no need for that: the ports used to pass information are chosen arbitrarily and have absolutely no bearing on connection speed.

 

For more information on NAT and how Warframe's connection works, refer to here and here.

 

My best guess would be to say the problem is either your internet, someone else on your network using all the bandwidth, your client being unable to connect properly to the server because it's borked, or your packets getting lost in translation.  If you know what you're doing, try using command line to find out what's going wrong.  If you don't, google can help, and I've listed the possible returns below and what they mean.  To reach a terminal, open your Start menu and type "cmd" into the search line (alternatively, shift+right-click in the folder where your launcher is and select "Open command window here").  Type in the following:

tracert -d -h 100 warframe.com

This command will rapid-fire a series of three "ghost" packets along the path it would take to reach the server.  If the command ends before line 100 with the response "Trace complete.", then your packets are reaching the server, and being unable to connect isn't your problem.

If the command ends at line 100 with the response "Trace complete.", then you need to increase the number of allowable hops (replace the 100 in the code with a larger number)

If at any point you get a row of asterisks ( *     *     * ), that means that the router your computer just tried to use to get to the destination didn't work.  Don't panic if this happens.  Your computer will immediately try a different router, and continue trying other routers until it finds one that works or runs out of tries. 

If upwards of 40 lines go by with nothing but asterisks, then your packets aren't making it past that router, and thus aren't reaching the server.  Your best option then would be to troubleshoot your hardware (use the googles if you don't know what the most common causes of internet connectivity issues are), power-cycle your router (turn it off and on again), or attempt to redownload the client (deleting all copies of your client from your machine before doing this usually helps).  Steam can help you if you're not sure how to reverify your cache after a deletion.

 

 

Hope that made sense, and good luck getting it sorted.  If problems persist, it wouldn't hurt to contact Support.  They know how their own server works far better than I (since I can only guess), and they likely know a few tricks to fix things that I forgot.

Have fun and be safe, Tenno.

Did the packet send. Only 7 made it. None of the fixes to get the rest to send, worked.

Wat do.

[Yzjdriel]

Just now, Seruai said:

Did the packet send. Only 7 made it. None of the fixes to get the rest to send, worked.

Wat do.

Welp.

 

It would appear your packets aren't making it all the way to the world wide web.  Other than fixing your hardware or trying a bunch of other shenanigans that probably won't work, I don't know what to tell you.

 

Are you posting from a mobile device, or can you access the rest of the internet from your computer?

[Seruai]

1 minute ago, Yzjdriel said:

Welp.

 

It would appear your packets aren't making it all the way to the world wide web.  Other than fixing your hardware or trying a bunch of other shenanigans that probably won't work, I don't know what to tell you.

 

Are you posting from a mobile device, or can you access the rest of the internet from your computer?

Posting this from mobile, because..reasons. I can acsess interwebs fine.

[Yzjdriel]

28 minutes ago, Seruai said:

Posting this from mobile, because..reasons. I can acsess interwebs fine.

If you can access the internet just fine then you shouldn't have any connection problems.  Clearly something isn't working.

Do me a favor and

tracert -d -h 100 google.com

for me?

[Seruai]

1 minute ago, Yzjdriel said:

If you can access the internet just fine then you shouldn't have any connection problems.  Clearly something isn't working.

Do me a favor and

tracert -d -h 100 google.com

for me?

Trace finished at 15. All sent.

[Yzjdriel]

Okay, so you're getting through to google just fine.

Is it possible your network is proxied?

[Seruai]

Just now, Yzjdriel said:

Okay, so you're getting through to google just fine.

Is it possible your network is proxied?

I haven't a clue.

[Yzjdriel]

23 minutes ago, Seruai said:

I haven't a clue.

That's a no, then.  (Trust me, you'd know if it was.)

Herm.  Well in all honesty it looks like you're down to only a few options:

• powercycle your computer
• powercycle your modem AND your computer
• delete and redownload the entire client
• contact Support and provide as much detail as you can

 

Emphasis mine on the fact that I'm no expert in any of this and that I'm probably forgetting some obvious and mundane fix for this.  At any rate, I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help.

[Seruai]

I've...done all 4 of the above. Multiple times. No help. -sigh- If only DE made dedicated lobby servers...thank you for trying to assist, though. You sure were better help than support..

1 minute ago, Yzjdriel said:

That's a no, then.  (Trust me, you'd know if it was.)

Herm.  Well in all honesty it looks like you're down to only a few options:

• powercycle your computer
• powercycle your modem AND your computer
• delete and redownload the entire client
• contact Support and provide as much detail as you can

 

Emphasis mine on the fact that I'm no expert in any of this and that I'm probably forgetting some obvious and mundane fix for this.  At any rate, I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help.

 

[Yzjdriel]

2 minutes ago, Seruai said:

I've...done all 4 of the above. Multiple times. No help. -sigh- If only DE made dedicated lobby servers...thank you for trying to assist, though. You sure were better help than support..

Seeing as you're still not connected, I would argue that I've been the same degree of help as support.  To be honest unless it's a server-side problem there's literally nothing they can do.  But IT people generally have all the troubleshooting steps memorized, and I'm just pulling stuff out of my experience (and google).

[Seruai]

Support said nothing to me to find out if packets were being recieved. Funnily enough, each ticket degraded into minimum hardware requirements and graphical settings..

[Yzjdriel]

5 minutes ago, Seruai said:

Support said nothing to me to find out if packets were being recieved. Funnily enough, each ticket degraded into minimum hardware requirements and graphical settings..

I'm afraid that process is mostly automated.  You may even wish to call your service provider to see if they have a clue of how to fix the problem.  Never hurts to ask.